Two women from the southern states were talking Michigan advance recently about the trauma of being denied medical care for losing a pregnancy after a fall Roe v. Wade.
Amanda Zurawski from Texas and Kaitlyn Joshua from Louisiana said they both wanted to get pregnant.
Żurawski went through what she described as a grueling year of infertility treatment, which ended tragically when the pregnancy she had fought so strenuous for had catastrophic complications at just 18 weeks.
But Texas has a near-total ban on abortion. Żurawski said the doctor told her her life had to be in danger before her daughter could be born before she became viable, which meant an abortion. Before she decided to have an abortion, she experienced two bouts of sepsis. The damage caused by this experience has made it likely that she will be unable to carry a future pregnancy to term.
“I found myself in this position because of what happened to me as a result of the ban in force in Texas,” Żurawski told the daily Achievement. “…I can’t say enough about it, the emotional and psychological toll it takes. It was just the way it was, I’m doing much better now, but it was all devastating for a while.
Zurwaski’s story about almost dying after a miscarriage in 2022 is currently subject to a fresh TV ad from President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
“Because [former President] Donald Trump was killed Roe v. Wade“Amanda was denied standard medical care to prevent infection and abortion,” the ad says. “…She almost died twice. The infection has done so much damage that Amanda may never get pregnant again.”
She has it too defendant state of Texas.
Żurawski and Joshua traveled to Lansing, Detroit and Grand Rapids on Tuesday on behalf of the Biden campaign. They stopped in Lansing to talk with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, about their concerns about abortion in Michigan if former President Donald Trump is re-elected this fall.
Joshua told Nessel how she found out she was pregnant a few weeks after Louisiana passed a near-total abortion ban. She and her husband were delighted with the idea of having a second child Join their 4-year-old daughter. However, she was denied reproductive health care from the beginning because she was told that after more than two months of pregnancy, she would have to wait a month for a prenatal visit.
“I asked on the phone, ‘Is it because of what I think?’ and they said yes. Due to the abortion ban, prenatal visits were scheduled later, when miscarriages are less common, to avoid potential legal liability for health care providers,” Joshua told Nessel. “Around week 11, just a week before my first prenatal visit, I started experiencing a lot of blood loss and pain that was worse than when I gave birth.”
She had a miscarriage. But instead of formally getting an abortion to get pregnant safely, Joshua said she was sent home.
IN Louisiana Illuminator Column published last month, Joshua recalled that the staff “told me they were praying for me. I am a Christian who goes to church every Sunday. I needed answers and access to care, not their prayers.”
Joshua, however, said she failed to provide her with the care she needed and instead had to suffer alone.
“It took me weeks to get pregnant on my own at home and I was absolutely terrified. This experience allowed me to see firsthand how black women are dying in this country at an alarming rate,” Joshua said on Tuesday.
Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts, According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“When we look at access to obstetrics, if we look at access to just basic prenatal care as it currently stands Roe v. Wade and later, it’s definitely a stark contrast [in terms of] the correlation between the abortion ban and the rates being higher than before,” Joshua said advance. “As a woman who identifies as Black and, most importantly, as someone who has experienced adversity as a result of the abortion ban, I kind of have an opportunity to bring this conversation to the table.”
Nessel said that twenty years ago, when she was pregnant with triplets, she had to have an abortion to save the lives of her other two children, which she did.
“I can’t imagine, I literally can’t imagine being in the situation that you were in, in the states you come from, now after-RoeNessel said. “For politicians to tell me what I can and can’t do with my body, and tell me that I have to risk my life just because I’m a woman who wants to reproduce and have children, or potentially tell me that I don’t at all I could have children, which doesn’t seem very pro-life to me in any way, shape or form.
Nessel said she was terrified by the prospect of a Trump presidency. She argued that any cryptic claims that she was not interested in a federal abortion ban be against what voters know: Trump happily takes responsibility for the collapse Roe.
And as states crack down on in vitro fertilization (IVF) and questions arise about surrogacy, the path to parenthood for many under Republican leadership is unclear, Zurawski said advance.
Earlier this year, she and her husband Josh he said they planned to move her frozen embryos out of Texas out of fear that the state might ban in vitro fertilization.
“It really opened my eyes that these laws and the way they are written really have no limits. And we know that MAGA Republicans will take them as far as they can to control women across the United States,” Żurawski said advance. “For anyone who lives in any state where they think they’re safe, they think they’re protected. If Donald Trump is re-elected, no one will be safe.”
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